Derek Dixon has opened up about his sexual assault accusations against Tyler Perry, amid the multi-hyphenate vehemently denying them and labeling them a “shakedown.”
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After suing Perry for sexual assault and harassment, Dixon sat down for an interview on ABC News on Tuesday, September 9, to detail his allegations against the writer, director, and producer. Dixon, who is an actor, says he was exploited by Perry while starring on his BET series The Oval, while Perry’s lawyers have issued statements denying his claims.
In the new interview, Dixon described an alleged incident included in the lawsuit, in which he says Perry “pulled my underwear down and grabbed my a**” after a night of drinking at Perry’s home in Atlanta.
“We were both walking back to the guest area, where I’d stayed before, and there’s this health monitor scale on the way. I was like, ‘What is that?’ And he said, ‘Well you have to be in your underwear to measure,” Dixon recalled. “He reached down and pulled my underwear down and grabbed my ass and I tried to stop him and pull back my underwear up. He kind of grabbed my arms and said, ‘No no no, it’s okay. Just go with it.’ And I said, ‘Stop, I don’t want to be naked. I don’t want this.’ And he said, ‘I’m not going to hurt you.’”
He continued, “Unless someone’s been through something where they have their control over their body taken away, you don’t really understand the kind of feelings that you get in that moment. Every thought came into my head: to run, to fight, to freeze. I didn’t know what to do.”
Dixon claims the evening ended with him locking himself in the guest house bathroom. The next day, he says Perry called to apologize. The actor also alleges that prior to the incident, he had stayed at Perry’s guest house and during that stay, the filmmaker allegedly “climbed into bed” with him and “started rubbing my leg.”
“I jumped up out of bed. He said, ‘Turn around so I can look at you,’ and just commented on how I looked. And he got up and left,” Dixon claimed in the interview. “I thought after that instance, it was pretty clear that I was not interested in that type of a relationship. … It’s okay that people try to make a move or shoot their shot, but if they get rejected I think that they should stop. I thought it would stop after that and it didn’t.”
The actor went on to claim that Perry sent him multiple texts with sexual connotations. In his lawsuit, Dixon says he feared professional retaliation if he ignored Perry’s messages. Dixon’s character was shot multiple times in an episode of The Oval Season 2, a scripting decision that Dixon took as, “If I don’t make him happy, I could stay dead on the show.”
“For me, that was his way of showing power over us and our careers,” Dixon explained to ABC’s Linsey Graham. “I was extremely anxious. The calls and texts were almost everyday. This constant state of, ‘If I don’t answer, I will lose my job. I will be fired or killed off the show.’ It took a huge toll on my anxiety and depression.”
Dixon left The Oval in September 2024, per Variety. His lawsuit against Perry was filed in June 2025, in which he seeks $260 million in punitive damages from Perry.
